Movie Mon. - It's Not Suspicious . . . It's Unusual.

Another slow movie-watching week, due to my New Obsession and the realization that several of the Netflix I have to watch would probably be good ones to watch with mi madre when I head to Miamuh for Thanksgiving. I did, however, get to go see a movie on the big screen. How did I like my limited viewing? Well, two out of three ain't bad . . .

Millions: From the man who brought you dead baby hallucinations and rage-infected zed words comes a very well done British family film about a young boy who's coping with his mother's death by creating imaginary friends; the hook is that his imaginary friends are all Catholic saints. Added into the mix are a bag of thousands of pounds which he thinks is from God, but is really from a huge bank heist; the upcoming E-day, when Britain officially moves from the pound to the Euro, meaning the bag of money must be spent or converted post-haste; an older brother who sees opportunity to advance himself with the money; the young boy's desire to give all of the money to the poor, much to his brother's dismay; and, of course, the appearance of the original thief wanting his money back. Lots of very cool visuals here, and some first-rate acting from both of the main kids; I highly recommend this one.

Stealth: To be honest, I kind of half-watched this one; not a single thing about it made me feel compelled to get off the computer and devote my full attention to its hackneyed plot. My advice is to give this one a miss; not much in the way of redeeming values, IMO.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Having bowed out of attending the midnight screening with Cap'ns Cluck and Disaster, I instead went to the 10:30 showing that evening with Trouble. Definitely the best film in the series; don't know if that's because the director is British and so really gets the spirit of the books, or if he's just a better director for this sort of film. Wonderful casting decisions for Mad-Eye, Rita Skeeter, and Voldemort (Brendan Gleeson, Miranda Richardson, and Ralph Fiennes, respectively), and it was nice to see the return of Shirley Henderson as Moaning Myrtle, even if I am still freaked out that a 40-year old can play a teenager so convincingly; true, she's a teen-aged ghost, but still! I know there are some who fixate on the changes made to the plot, and I can empathize, since I fall into that same trap myself from time to time (I will never forgive Sydney Pollack for the asinine changes made to The Firm), but its been so long since I've read the books that none of the changes jumped out at me (for example, I had forgotten it was Dobby who gets the gillyweed, not Neville). One of my favorite things about this film was that we finally got a director who understands the importance of highlighting the antics of the Weasley twins, who are consistently my favorite characters in the books but who, up until now, have been given short shrift in the films. I'm sad to see that Mike Newell won't be directing the next installment in the series, but at least they hired another Brit to do it, even if he's someone I've never heard of before.